Flack's PRWeek Power Book 2013 launch party

Alas, any hip hop fans among the power players were to be disappointed - there was not a tinted window nor bit of bling in sight. Quizzed about his failure to deliver, the ex-Seventy Seven PR man mumbled something about the 'tyres being flat' and the 'ladies not turning up'. Flack's not angry, just disappointed...

Shine's owner Rachel Bell, meanwhile, was particularly enamoured with the PRWeek Power Book game idea (which you can play online). Ever the big thinker, she took it one step further and foresaw next year's Power 12 being split into football teams. And where would Bell play? Taking the starring role as centre forward 'making those deals and scoring those goals', of course...

On the subject of sporting metaphors, incoming Govt comms head Alex Aiken was grappling with his own. Comparing his old job at Westminster City Council to a team sport 'like football or basketball', he said the new role was more like playing tennis, with every shot needing to be returned. Flack is not quite sure what this means, but imagines Pimms, white soles and sweatbands would liven up any dry civil service meeting...

The ubiquity of Nandos broke into the world of the PR power players this year. But while the place that puts the fear of God into chickens got into the Power Book’s top ten restaurants list it seems some folk have missed the peri-peri party. Everything Everywhere's Stuart Jackson confessed he has never been. The audience's jaws were agape... 

Ogilvy's Michael Frohlich graced the Power Book party despite the best efforts of his agency's extreme email spam filters to block the invitation. Flack concurred that it too had faced similar over-eager spam blocking problems, prompting Frohlich to joke that this may be the reason pictures of his tanned torso had not made it through. Well, Flack thinks it was a joke. Either way, it's suddenly reversed its opinion on spam filters...

Those suave elder statesmen and women in the lobbyists' corner (or 'ghetto' as one of them ventured to describe it) have seen Power Books come and go. Nothing could disturb their bonhomie, until the wine ran out. When one soul had the temerity to bring over a couple of Mai Tais, their shrift was shorter than Flack's nephew's trousers…

Still, a good PA man bears the slings and arrows with equanimity, and Lionel Zetter was soon espousing his CAMP diet - that's caffeine, alcohol, meat and potatoes to the uninitiated. He had one of those food groups well covered…

A surfeit of Brussels had clearly gone to the head of Michael Burrell, who must have been the night's latest arrival. Having been stuck for two hours on the runway at Eurocrat Airport, Burrell started babbling about plans to write a book about sex and lobbying. Zetter's Political Companion, move over…

Talking of literary excellence, grammar became a hot topic late in the evening as House PR's Ginny Paton saddled up her hobby horse about correcting her junior staff's waywardness with apostrophes. You fight that good fight Ginny, theres' nothing worse than bad grammar...

This article was first published on prweek.com